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National Forum

What is the National Forum?

England is split into 9 areas. The National Forum has a regional forum in each of these areas. Each area elects 2 people to go onto the National Forum and represent people with learning disabilities in their area

The job of each regional forum member is:

• To Support the National Forum to do its job.
• To bring issues about services in your area to the National Forum.
• To listen to what people are saying in each region and see how the forum could help.
• To tell others what is happening at the National Forum

Each region has a slot on the National Forum to report back what is happening.  

The forum work is very important. It works closely with Government at a high level and is listened to very carefully by Ministers. Things have changed because of what forum members have said, sometimes even with announcements made in the House of Commons.

Forum members often have other work to do.

Work on the National Forum is not paid. The Government does not want to be seen as paying for people's views, which might be seen as paying for what they want to get rather than you being free to say what you want to say. They do pay for lots of the other work people do.

Information is passed on from advocacy groups to regional forums. The regional forums then take this to the National Forum big meeting. The National Forum decides which issues will be passed on to a group called the National programme Board. This information will then be passed onto Government. The Government will ask feedback information and ask what we think about new policies and laws for people with learning difficulties.

Read the latest National Forum minutes (March 2012)
Read the minutes from the National Forum meeting in January 2012

Find out contact details for the National Forum Co-Chairs and the regional representatives.

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Staying Strong

Download the National Forum's Staying Strong Guide, or their follow up Guide 'Staying Strong - For How Long?'

         

Access to Work

The National Forum have created a document to help explain Access to Work.

Download it here.

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What is VoiceAbility’s role in the National Forum?

VoiceAbility will be helping to facilitate the National Forum meetings and collate information from them. We have created a new National Forum website and we will be keeping it up to date with National Forum news and information.